For those who have 27 minutes of time to spare with nothing better to do, here’s my latest (and last) BCF sermon on 1. Peter 2:4-10. If anyone takes those 27 minutes to listen to it, I’d appreciate if you also took five to tell me what you think and what I could have improved and where I was unclear.
And if you think it’s terrible, well, I won’t be preaching again in a long time…
You say that Nebuchadnezzar had forgotten his dream. I’ve never heard that before – I always thought he had simply figured out that the “wise” men were just guessing, and so if he didn’t tell them the dream at all, then they would have to show whether they actually wise.
I appreciate your comments on community and interacting with “the church down the street”.
I am not sure what you mean by including and excluding from fellowship when you are talking about unity. It seems to me that if you do not agree on some point or you disagree about whether some point is worth thinking about, or if it matters or not, etc. then you are not in unity with that person. It seems to me that you are saying that you can’t hold to that sort of definition of unity because you might be wrong, but I don’t see why that is relevant, unless the person insists that they are right, and have no interest in listening to anyone else.
As for your last point – thanks – Sometimes it is hard to remember that God’s work in our lives truly is marvelous.
And whether I have nothing better to do or not – what better way to spend 27 minutes while trying to eradicate a virus from a Spanish version of windows…
Thanks, Jon – I’ll get back with a more exhaustive reply once I have enough time to phrase things well.
One thing I can already say: I would not be able to work on virus eradication and pay attention to someone talking at the same time!
Listening goes really well with ironing, except that I’ll have to try again. I grabbed the file called Stephan’s sermon — then wondered why you were using the forgotten Christmas gift illustration again.
That’s okay, I didn’t manage to finish the ironing yesterday, anyway.
First, briefly, Nebuchadnezzar’s dream – for some reason I had not ever thought of it differently, but Jon, your explanation would also work. It makes him a tad more mean-spirited in my mind, but I suppose that’s a tad that doesn’t make much of a difference to a bunch of wise men fearing for their lives. The text seems to allow for both versions; some translations have him saying he wants to know “what the dream was” and others “what the dream means.”
Unity will take a few paragraphs. My impression is that too often we tend to avoid other Christians because they don’t share our belief that there should be exactly 144 candles on the church Christmas tree or some other somewhat minor issue.
You are right: if I insist that those 144 candles are a major issue and I won’t deal with people who don’t agree or at least don’t tell me it’s trivial, then I won’t be able to have unity. But I am depriving myself of unity by my own insistence on certain tenets of faith, a deprivation that quite possibly need not be.
We will always congregate with those who agree with us most, and that’s good and right and helps us to work more smoothly as a local church, but when deciding who’s a brother in unity with me I propose to set the bar as low as I can bear. I propose we stretch out and down and work on unity with the guy who does baptism all backwards and the girl who’s confused about communion. That’s one thing I really liked about IV at the EPFL (in Switzerland), where I was in the same group with Brethren and Catholics and a whole lot in between. We knew there were disagreements, but we knew that we were united in our belief in Jesus as Lord and Savior.
To put it in perhaps more personal terms, it makes sense that your church and Andrew parted ways, because the tension was too much for the local church to handle. And certainly some of the tension has resulted in a reduced unity, but would you say all unity is gone? Is it now impossible to sit down with him for prayer, or to lead a service together with him?
In a more general fashion, again: what are the minimum requirements for unity? I don’t propose theological sleight-of-hand or nilly-willy kumbayah unity, but if Paul – no theological pantywaist – had such definite ideas of how a church should look and yet mentions such a short list as “of first importance,” we should take note.
That’ll be it for now… except for a comment about “marvelous:” that line is a paraphrased quote from the verse in Psalms right after what Peter quotes. I’m glad it spoke to you; I found it encouraging.
nebuchednezzar: i thought he was asking them for both what it was and what it means, the first being a test for the validity of the second, which is the one he cared about.
unity with Andrew: I guess it all depends on your definition of unity. Can you find a definition in a dctionary that describes your theology? (i didn’t look it up right now, but I think the definitions are usually things like “one” “united”, “together”, etc.)
Andrew wouldn’t lead a non-Orthodox service. He did ask an Orthodox pastor about doing a wedding for people who wanted him to do it, and the church said he couldn’t marry a Protestant couple.
I could pray with him, though most of his prayers are reciting things, so I would only know some of them. He isn’t against “spontaneous” prayer, so he could come to “my” side, but I would have a hard time joining “his” side.
I think Acts 2 looks like a good picture of unity.
Clearly, I need to get back to the ironing….
Before I get serious, I have to say my favorite part of the sermon was when you called R.C. Sproul a lousy theologian. 🙂 Not by name, nor on purpose, but at least when we knew him — admittedly a number of years ago — he managed to hold onto the idea that God chooses to save some but at the same time does not choose not to save others. Bizarre, but true. Even he said that the first question he wants to ask God when he gets to heaven is, “Why is there sin?”
Unity. Well, here’s a definition from Merriam-Webster that comes close to expressing part of what I mean: “a totality of related parts : an entity that is a complex or systematic whole.” I think that describes the Church pretty well. We are part of the same whole, but it is complex, and we are not the same. We have to agree enough to be “related,” to be part of that particular complex whole rather than another — but that doesn’t mean we have to agree on everything.
Where we draw the line will depend greatly on the purpose of the line. The boundaries of the largest circle — who is, and is not, part of the Church — can only be drawn by God, and we ought to be hesitant to risk calling “unclean” what God might have called “clean.”
Practically speaking, however, it’s reasonable to draw narrower lines in other circumstances. There’s room in the Church for those views differ on, say, the Eucharist, or the method of baptism, or the role of women in the church, or the preferred style of worship, but a local congregation will work better if the members are in substantial agreement on such issues. There’s nothing wrong with that, as long as — for example — the female pastor and the pastor who believes women shouldn’t be ordained can bring their churches together to sponsor an outreach program to tutor at-risk children. Theological agreement between spouses should be even narrower, again for practical reasons. And again, that shouldn’t stop them from unity at another level with others.
It’s like a human family. Your family, in its broadest form, consists of everyone related to you, by blood, marriage, or adoption, past, present, and future. The list of who might come to a family reunion is considerably smaller, and that of those you might invite to Thanksgiving dinner smaller still. The brother who has openly promised — this really happened to a friend of mine — to “free your children from your rigid ideas of morality” might be included at Thanksgiving, but won’t be on the list of acceptable babysitters.
Sursumcorda has already said much of what I was going to say about unity and said it better. There are several definitions of unity ranging from “oneness” to “accord” to what Sursumcorda cites. If we relate them to the image Paul uses of the body, which, “though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body,” we can see that all definitions fit, but in different ways.
All believers are part of the body and in some mysterious way one, no matter how much we disagree theologically.
All parts of the body should move harmoniously with the joint purpose of glorifying God.
All parts should be conscious of the complexity of the body and remember that they belong to the same body together with starkly different parts.
I’d mentioned Andrew because sometimes it’s easier to talk about a concrete case than about generalities, even though (i) I don’t really know enough about the situation and (ii) it’s always difficult to generalize from a single case. So thanks for being open and sharing, Jon. I get the impression that both of you would call the other a member of the body, but that due to differences in your understanding of how to live the faith you would have a hard time living in closer unity than that basic admission. (Correct me if I misunderstood.)
In that way, the theological differences between the Orthodox church and non-denominational evangelicalism (is that an accurate description?) mean that you and Andrew will work most effectively for God’s glory in different local churches. That’s ok – even good. What I meant to get at in the sermon is that we often proceed to completely ignore the other (because we disagree) and de facto deny the unity that God says is there.
Acts 2 is a great picture of unity, and I agree we ought to work toward it. The mere fact of all our denominations, from the large Roman Catholic church to the many Sinatrian Evangelicals independently scattered across the world, shows to me that we are a long way from achieving that unity – and kicking out all brothers who disagree with me in something is a shortcut to apparent unity that I find dangerous, because we’re assuming God’s role of defining the body.
i’ve also wondered why people differentiated between single and double predestination.
my point is that the entire Church is not in unity. i guess you can argue for degrees of unity, and say that we are unity on this issue and not on these hundred other issues, but at least we have to admit that we really aren’t in “unity” for any useful definition of the word if we disagree on lots of issues. as for merriam webster’s: i think of the second (harmony) and third (one) definitions more than the fourth (that you quoted). the first definition is fine too (one) though it is mathematical so maybe not implying anything in the social realms.
i was just thinking about the idea of “who is my brother” from your other post/comment prior to reading it, and I wonder if it is right to differentiate, differently than my neighbor. 1 john talks about those who went out from us, who were not a part of us.
I think “brother” and “unity” are big words, and I don’t like to see them minimized so they no longer carry the power they would if not minimized. it seems like they are being defined as “neighbor” or “acquaintence” (brother) and “related” (unity).
when Jesus prayed that they all may be one, what did he mean? I figured he meant we should be one, that is united. he says we should be one as he is one with his father.
if someone’s theology is against scripture, are you still united with them?
“evangelical” isn’t a word I particularly like, since there are lots of well known self-described evangelicals that have very little to do with me.
non-denominational is fine, I suppose I don’t know enough bad connotations of that word to object to it.
I think it is fine to say Andrew is Christian and a member of that body. I think it is terribly dangerous to put the church above scripture where only the church is allowed to interpret scripture and any viewpoints that don’t correspond with the church’s current view are wrong is. Sounds like Galileo days to me.
(for the record, I’d argue just as much with the modern theologians who claim that every translation of the bible has been wrong so far and he is the first one to figure out the true meaning of whatever doctrinal point he is trying to prove. that isn’t any better than sticking to the old because it is old, and probably worse)
Jon, you raise a number of important questions. I don’t want to avoid them, but I do want to make sure I understand you correctly.
Do you understand unity and oneness to mean full agreement on all doctrinal questions?
Do you think it is possible to be part of the same body of Christ without being in unity/one?
Do you think it is ok to post happy birthday wishes in a blog post comment?
And how was the party? 🙂
To clarify the comment I made on the driving post, I was not attempting to equate “brother/sister” with “neighbor” in all contexts, but to suggest that Jesus might have had a wider application of the term in his broadening of the meaning of “Thou shalt not kill.”
I think unity in the body of Christ is similar to the unity of husband and wife. The Bible clearly states that once a man goes into a woman, the two have become one flesh, they are united. However, this is many times not perfect unity, as with a harlot or even a marriage with much strife. Somehow, there is a basic unity between believers – we have been united through faith in Christ. But we should not be satisfied to leave it at that. We should strive for perfect unity. That is what Jon is looking for.
You don’t tell a struggling couple, “Oh, well, you’re united, so don’t stress about all the stuff that’s making your marriage hard.” You encourage and counsel and help them as you can, to work through the differences so that they are closer to perfect unity.
Similarly, we shouldn’t sweep doctrinal issues under the rug and say, “Well, we’re all united, so it’s all good, don’t worry about it..” Yes, there are more and less important issues and we need to not get caught up in the lesser. But I think the thing that has been frustrating to us recently is not working through more important things.
One of these things in our local church is the role of the Holy Spirit in our day. There is one outspoken person who believes that the Holy Spirit does not work anymore since New Testament times – you shouldn’t pray for miraculous healing or the casting out of demons or any such thing. There is an elder in our church who has seen these kinds of miracles done by the Holy Spirit in the name of Jesus Christ in the Dominican Republic. There are many of the rest of us who haven’t seen such clearly miraculous things done, but believe that the Spirit does do them and wants to see more of His work in our lives.
We think this is very important and it is hard when the issue is downplayed or even ignored in the name of walking with your brother in love.
You are right to be concerned and to try to work through an issue that is dividing your local church. But although it’s theoretically possible that one congregation, or even one person, can find an answer that has eluded the church for most of its existence, forgive me if I doubt that it’s very likely. I’m certain some issues will never be settled this side of heaven, and that in some cases it matters a whole lot less to God that we get it exactly right than how we treat those who have discerned an answer that is different from ours.
I’m not intending to intrude on your church’s struggles with this issue, but will use it as an example, since you brought it up. How does the difference of viewpoint impact the local body? Views on the work of the Holy Spirit today have divided any number of churches to the breaking point, but it doesn’t always happen. If people hold differing views but do not interfere with the work of others, I say you can still be effectively united in a congregation. Can the one man silently withhold his agreement in a communal prayer for healing even though he believes it’s worthless, or does he feel compelled to stop others from making such a prayer? Does he attempt to debunk what the other man calls a miracle? Does the one who says he has seen miracles insist that the other man affirm them on the strength of his testimony? Do prayers for such miraculous works of the Holy Spirit take up so much of the time and energy of the congregation that the first man feels the church is losing sight of other important work to be done?
(On a side note, probably irrelevant, this example reminded me of the story– true story, but I don’t remember the particulars so I’m sure I’m quoting the details wrong — of the missionary who said, “The Western Church has the luxury of debating whether or not demon possession is real, but here in Africa we must deal with it on a daily basis.)
Going back to the example of a family: On the idea of sharing a family bed, just to take one issue, a husband and wife need to be in agreement, and had better work through any differences before the first child is born. There is no “live and let live” possible. But if, say, the wife’s brother and his wife agree to have their own baby sleep in a crib in another room, there’s no reason for that to come between the two couples. They are still “one family.” If they are loving and civil and reasonable, they can have many interesting discussions about their divergent approaches, and might even learn from one another.
Thanks, joyful, for the context. With that context, I can say I think Jon and I both long for a similar unity in the body of believers (if not the same), but we’re reacting against two different extremes in what we write.
I’ve seen several church splits, heard a number of vitriolic statements and condemnations of other denominations, and seen fellow Christians all but forsake each other over doctrinal disagreements. So I react by emphasizing the unity we have that crosses denominational boundaries and the need to live that somehow.
Jon is struggling with the opposite problem, that of doctrinal disagreements not even being discussed. So he reacts by emphasizing the importance of striving for doctrinal unity, a unity that is deper and more real than a mere “I’m ok, you’re ok, let’s talk about football” approach.
David Manduka’s sermon today touched on the topic of unity when he looked at the different components of Paul’s closing words of 2. Corinthians. (The sermon’s not up yet, but will be available soon here.) He pointed out that Paul didn’t allow for doctrinal heresy – he strongly denounced the false apostles opposing him in the previous chapters. Paul didn’t gloss over problems – he addressed them directly, but also showed confidence that the Corinthians would listen and accept the correction he intended for their edification. He showed that confidence by calling them “brothers” in the last verses, indicating a unity despite their sin and their having been misguided.
Then, Paul goes on the command them to be like-minded. David pointed out that the word is the same one Paul uses in Philippians 2, where he describes what kind of a like-mindedness he means: one growing up toward Jesus Christ. As God molds us and we exert ourselves to become more like Christ, we inevitably become more united despite disagreements or dislikes. If I truly in humility think of my brother in Christ as more important than myself, even though he’s bossy and self-centered and a spiritual baby, we will live in peace, and in the unity born of our mutual striving toward Christ. (I’m far from being there yet.)
I find this a helpful definition of unity. It excludes those that are intentionally heretical, but doesn’t limit unity to doctrinal identity. It allows for differences (that may come from holding different doctrines or just being at different stages of growth), but requires that we all be striving to be more like Christ for there to be any real unity. It is flexible and welcoming, but deep and demanding.
Thanks, Jon, for starting the discussion – and I’m sorry I didn’t understand better sooner.
i’d say that unity involves doctrinal agreement, but that is just the start. the less you are in agreement with one another, the less united you are.
i like heather’s example about the advice one would give a couple. that seems to be how people think about unity – we’re all in christ, there isn’t anything else to talk about. even when in my view, it seems questionable that people are talking about the same god since their theology leads them to describe god as a completely different entity than another. at some point people have to realize they are so different than claiming any sort of unity cannot be true.
when the issues are less central to one or the other’s faith, then one can start talking about being somewhat in unity, though, i guess i don’t a partial unity all that useful to talk about, since unity implies “one” and not 1/2 or whatever.
i’ll agree that some issues (like the family bed example) are not critical to associating or being part of the same family, etc. but those hypothetical people are less united than they would be if they all agreed.
the cessationist guy preaches, and strongly preached against a potential pastor, primarily on the grounds that he believed in demons, removing them,speaking in tongues and his views on women in the pulpit, so yes, it seems to me that he is not willing to sit idly by. a “satanic virus” is how he defined such people. but the strange thing about it, though the one elder i spoke to about it did agree that he had been too strong in his views, and the elders were going to talk to him about it – didn’t really see much problems in terms of not being in unity, since they still insist they are united.
on the other side, we are so far from being any sort of charismatic church that we don’t have to worry about such struggles of spending too much time in prayer for the spirit to work in our lives.
our elders are supposed to be working on a list of “non-negotiables” for our church as a first step in looking for a pastor. some people would things on that list that i would not agree with as non-negotiables, and perhaps think are actually wrong, so i don’t know where this will end up.
and yes – i like Paul’s direct confrontation of those things he sees as important. I’ve rarely been somewhere that people can state disagreements like that without being shut down for either “we believe x because john piper said so and any further discussion is not appropriate” or “we don’t believe in disagreeing, so this line of conversation seems too stressful”. neither of those are exact quotes, but too far off from the implied meaning.
as for the birthday party – it was pretty good. there ended up more people than i thought would be there and there were some good conversations. various friends from different circles and so that is always interesting.
oh i forgot – you should know me well enough by now that i’d be willing to bet you’ll never ask anything that i would consider an intrusion.
Ya got me there, Jon. Calling someone — or even someone’s beliefs — a “Satanic virus” is definitely beyond the pale if one hopes to foster any sort of unity.
I agree that the more one agrees on doctrine (even on trivia), the more united one is.
I agree that unity means more than just doctrinal unity. (For the record, I don’t think complete doctrinal unity is required for unity. More than that: I think complete doctrinal unity is impossible with people who are growing and thus changing in their knowledge of God.)
I agree that we should have a culture where we can talk about disagreements and doctrinal issues and beliefs. It is one of the main ways to grow in understanding, to build each other up in our quest to be more like Christ. It requires that both parties are committed (a) to striving to be more like Christ, (b) to a humble approach and a willingness to admit error, (c) to doing their best to understand the other party, and (d) to extending a generous benefit of the doubt. Calling each other names (like “satanic”) or applying premature judgment (“You are wrong! Repent!”) don’t help the dialog.
I agree that a local church should be careful in choosing its non-negotiables, but I think for a pastor search the list should be pretty strict and true to the character of that church. Otherwise, the pastor won’t match the church and a lot of energy will be lost in leadership friction. (The non-negotiables for members and attendees should be successively less strict, in part to make it possible for a recently converted believer to become a member before he can sign the Westminster Confession or a similarly complex and intricate document.)
I do not quite understand why partial unity isn’t useful in your mind. To me, I can be united with two people in our basic beliefs (e.g. Nicene Creed) but differ with the one on baptism and the other on dispensationalism. We’re united in some areas, but in others the unity is broken. Would you say I’m united with neither of these people, or with both? How many people would you say you know that are in unity with you?
Oh, I forgot – you should know me well enough by now that I’ll keep asking if a certain question is an intrusion, even if the question is for you. Or do you think I am wrong to ask that?
i like all your “i agree” sentences. And yes, I also think it good to have the non-negotiables prior to a pastor search. Heather has said this a number of times over the last six months, and the leadership never heard her apparently, because an outside pastor said the same thing and it was seen as a novel idea.
And there are some that thought we should wait for a pastor to come to help figure out all this stuff. Which doesn’t make any sense to me.
Perhaps I said the partial unity thing too strongly. It is better to be in partial unity than not at all, but I don’t want to reduce the meaning of the word by applying it to relationships that aren’t united. (I’m thinking now of “mostly dead” from The Princess Bride – usually people don’t don’t use “dead” when describing someone still “partially alive”, they might say “sick” or “dying” or “not well”, etc.)
There is quite a lot of variation in what people believe even though they both believe (or say they believe) the Nicene creed. I guess if I’m forced to pick yes or no, I’d say no.
I do think doctrinal unity is possible, and while we are changing, one, we can change together, and two, we can discuss things as we change. People like to say, “well, you can’t even agree with everything with your wife so how can you expect it in the church”, which bothered me, so Heather and I talked about it and Heather thought of two (relatively minor things, I’d say) that we have previously disagreed about, and never resolved, and so we talked about them and now we don’t know of anything we disagree on. I’d say we’re pretty close to unity with the Kuhns – usually how it goes is that John says a statement, and I’m not thrilled with it, and have some objections, and over time the statement is softened (John would say it isn’t softened, just that I didn’t understand what he said originally) and then I can agree that it is true.
My main answer to most of the problems of the world is “time” – when people are running around, they don’t have time to understand one another, and face-to-face time is very valuable. I don’t think unity can come without lots of time.
intrusion: heh, fair enough.
Though I liken it to a friend I was talking to last night who (we haven’t talked in a long time) kept hesitating and apologizing and saying things like, “I don’t know what you’ll think of this”, or “I can’t figure out how to phrase it”, and I told her multiple times to stop saying that, that she didn’t need to worry about what I thought of her or offending me, etc. After the conversation she emailed to say that too often she is a chameleon, and so it was good to have someone “force” her to stand on her own, than trying to say stuff that pleased me.
I don’t know if that is clear, of why I thought of that with you, but what I mean is that once we’ve established that you aren’t physcially capable of intruding into my life (based on both of our personalities) then it does seem “wrong” to continue to ask that question, where “wrong” is at least defined as “taking unnecessary time”, if not a more conventional definition of “wrong”.
Jon, do you really mean you and Heather agree on everything? If so, I think you’re missing out on a major advantage of there being two of you. In fact, I would say you two are a great example of unity within disagreement: You are a vegetarian; Heather is an omnivore. But you willingly fix meals with meat (and even do the nasty cutting-up-chicken job!), and Heather normally fixes meatless meals for the family. The kids love meat and eat it — but not very often. And you’re all wonderfully healthy. (Current coughs-hanging-on notwithstanding.)
Some would consider vegetarian vs. omnivore a major doctrinal issue, but even when it’s not, it’s certainly a major tactical issue, and you’ve made it work out for your family very nicely. To me, that’s a more important demonstration of what makes for the unity of a body than if one of you had changed the other, or if you had never disagreed in the first place.
That’s an interesting point, Mom. We are obviously not the same person and so we do have our different preferences and we have worked together to make it work together.
Maybe that’s the best definition of unity we should have. Even though Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are one, they are also distinct persons who are not exactly the same as each other (the Son is not the Father is one we have discussed recently.)
So then, as we strive to become one in the body, that doesn’t mean we need to be exactly the same person as everyone else in the body. (Hey, maybe that’s what Paul meant by eyes, ears, and feet…)
Well, I’m sitting here thinking about this and not typing, so I’ll go ahead and post this and then come back if I have more coherent thoughts.
I don’t feel like I need to add much more to the main thread. The descriptions of unity posted in the last three comments come very close to how I think unity ought to be lived – not one, not identical, but moving toward the same goal, encouraging and edifying each other, and, by becoming more like Christ, becoming more like each other.
After all, even John and Jon don’t agree all the time, but through give and take (admitted or not) come to a solid, satisfactory solution (and eventual agreement).
But then there’s the intrusion thread…
Jon, if your main answer to most of the problems of the world is taking more time to listen to each other, why I am “wrong” to take a little more time in my speech to honor social conventions of consideration toward the person I’m talking to? I’m not quite sure I understand.
but we aren’t talking about “some” person, we are talking about me, which is why I said you mus not know me well enough if you don’t already know my answer.
vegetarian: hadn’t thought about that one. I think it isn’t that a big of a deal to either of us.
Something Heather said recently inspired thought of a necessary caution when it comes to deciding whether or not we are united in anything. I’m paraphrasing what I heard, and if I heard wrong I hope Heather will correct me. But it won’t change the point.
Jonathan and Noah, she said, are very good about working their way to agreement if they will stop acting/reacting and talk with each other about the issue. But she wonders, sometimes, if they have really reached a good compromise, or if Jonathan has simply browbeaten Noah into agreement
One of the problems that comes with wealth is that it is hard for a rich man to know when someone is truly his friend, and when that friendship is motivated by money. Similarly, people with wealth in the form of high verbal and debating skills need to be alert that what looks like agreement may be true unity, or it may be that the other person (1) loves you and doesn’t want to hurt/be hurt by you, or (2) wants to be a peacemaker, or (3) feels he can’t out-argue you but is nonetheless not persuaded by your argument, or (4) is simply tired of debating and wants to move on with life.
Thanks for continuing the discussion in my absence. I do intend to weigh in again once the move is over and internet is connected in the new place. For various reasons, that won’t be before March 14th…
Now here’s what I mean by unity! Does it have to take a disaster to achieve?
Danny’s March 21 update:
“Another amazing day in Iwaki City (18 miles from Nuclear reactor) Still no detection of serious radiation. The only real radiation is the love of Christ burning into this community with a ferocity that only be explained by the power of the Holy Spirit moving through the people of God. As we labor besides our bothers and sisters here in Iwaki, the joy of Jesus abounds and is so apparent. The laughter and positive attitude is contagious and even though I am tired and still jet-lagged I find myself full of a deep joy and worshipful spirit. The Church is always moving, always either in worship, fellowship, mercy and distribution to the needy or prayer. People from all over are streaming into the city to help, coming from different denominations, cities and even other countries. The Church is so united and full of love for each other… minor doctrinal differences fall away and are replaced by humility, love and respect for each other… each person desiring to learn and receive and bless each other. It is so neat to see God at work in Japan and here in Iwaki in particular.”
Oops, that should be March 25.